Emergency repairs with a guest in the property
Something has failed mid-stay and the clock is now running on a refund request. Send the details through and it goes to the front of our queue.
- Guest-in-house faults prioritised
- Same-day attendance where possible
- We deal with the guest directly
- Honest timelines, not optimistic ones
Send it through now, then read the rest
If a guest is in the property right now, do not read this page first. Fill in the form, write guest in house in the message, and include the guest's first name and mobile if you are happy for us to contact them directly.
Emergencies are triaged on the basis of whether the property is occupied and whether the fault makes it unusable. Those two facts matter more than anything else you can tell us, so lead with them.
Three things to include
The property address, whether a guest is currently on site, and what has actually stopped working. Everything else can follow in the next email.
Emergency repair request
Mark the urgency as guest in house and we will treat it accordingly.
What to check before we arrive
A meaningful share of after-hours callouts turn out to be something a guest can resolve in two minutes. It costs nothing to check these first, and if one of them fixes it you have saved a callout fee and salvaged the evening.
Air conditioning is not cooling
- Confirm the remote is set to cool, not fan or dry, and that the set temperature is below room temperature.
- Check the circuit breaker at the switchboard. Air conditioners commonly trip their own circuit and nothing else.
- Ask the guest to check whether the filters behind the front cover are visibly clogged. This is the single most common cause.
- Check whether the outdoor unit is running. Indoor fan but silent outdoor unit points to a compressor or capacitor fault, which is ours.
No hot water
- Check the dedicated hot water circuit breaker or isolation switch. It is often a separate switch to everything else.
- If the system is on an off-peak tariff, a heavy back-to-back guest changeover can simply exhaust the tank. It will recover.
- For gas systems, confirm the gas supply is on and, for bottled gas, that the bottle is not empty.
- Never ask a guest to relight a pilot or adjust anything gas related. That is a licensed job every time.
Power is out in part of the property
- Ask the guest to look at the switchboard for a tripped safety switch or breaker and flip it back on. That is the only switchboard action to ask of a guest.
- If it trips again immediately, an appliance is usually the cause. Unplug everything on that circuit, reset, then reconnect one at a time.
- Check whether neighbours have power. A street outage is the network operator's problem, not a fault in your property.
Leaks and lockouts
- For an active leak, the first move is always to shut off the water. Every host should know where the property's isolation valve or main tap is, and it belongs in the house manual.
- Put towels down and move anything valuable. Water damage compounds fast, and the secondary damage usually costs more than the leak.
- For a failed smart lock, flat batteries are the cause far more often than a fault. Most models accept a nine volt battery held against external terminals as an emergency jump.
- Keep a backup key in a lockbox at the property. It converts a midnight emergency into a two-minute message.
Where to draw the line with guests
Asking a guest to check a remote setting, flip a breaker back on, or look at a filter is reasonable. Asking them to open a switchboard cover, work on anything gas, get on a ladder, or touch water and electricity together is not. If the check is not on the list above, wait for a trade.
How an emergency callout runs
Triage on receipt
We confirm whether a guest is on site and whether the property is still usable. That determines where the job sits in the queue.
Realistic window, in writing
You get an attendance window and a rate before we leave. If we cannot make it in time to save the stay, we say so immediately.
Direct coordination with the guest
With your approval we arrange the arrival time with the guest, so you are not relaying messages between two parties.
Fix, or make safe and report
Repaired on the spot where possible. Where it is not, we make the property safe, apply a temporary fix, and give you the real timeline.
Most emergencies announced themselves months ago
An air conditioner that struggled through last February will not survive this one. A hot water system past twelve years old is running on borrowed time. A shower that drains slowly is telling you about a blockage that is still cheap to clear.
Emergency work is the most expensive way to buy maintenance, and it is the only kind that costs you a guest as well. A scheduled inspection catches the same faults while the property is empty and the rates are standard.
Worth replacing before they fail
- Hot water systems approaching the end of their expected service life
- Air conditioners that underperformed in the last hot spell
- Smart lock batteries, on a fixed replacement schedule rather than on failure
- Perished shower silicone and tired grout, before water gets behind
- Flexible braided hoses under sinks, which fail without warning and flood
- Smoke alarms at or near their ten year replacement date
Emergency callout questions
What counts as an emergency on a short-stay property?
Anything that makes the property unusable, unsafe or unlettable while a guest is in it. In practice that means air conditioning failure in summer, no hot water, an active leak or burst pipe, total or partial power loss, a lockout or failed smart lock, a blocked toilet in a single-bathroom property, and any damage affecting security such as a broken window or a door that will not lock. If a guest cannot reasonably stay another night, treat it as an emergency.
How fast will you get there?
Guest-in-house faults are our highest priority and are usually attended same day when the enquiry reaches us during the working day. The honest answer depends on where the property is and what has failed, so our reply gives you a realistic window rather than a number designed to sound good. If we cannot make it in time to save the stay, we tell you immediately so you can decide on a refund or relocation while it still helps.
Do you charge more for emergency callouts?
Priority and after-hours attendance is charged at a higher rate than planned work, which is standard across the trade. We tell you the rate in the reply before we attend, so the cost is never a surprise on the invoice. It is also worth weighing against the alternative: a single refunded night plus a damaged review usually costs more than the callout.
Will you deal with the guest directly?
Yes, if you want us to. Give us the guest's first name and mobile in the enquiry and we will arrange an arrival time with them, keep the visit brief, and report back to you afterwards. Most hosts prefer this because it removes them from the middle of a three-way conversation at exactly the moment they are least able to answer messages.
What if the repair cannot be completed on the spot?
Some faults need a part that is not on the van, or a replacement unit that has to be ordered. In that case we do three things: make the property safe, apply the best temporary fix available such as a portable cooling unit or an isolated water supply, and tell you straight away what the real timeline is. Knowing at 5pm that the hot water system needs replacing tomorrow is far more useful than finding out at 9am.
Can you prevent these callouts happening in the first place?
Most of them, yes. The overwhelming majority of emergency callouts we attend were visible as warning signs months earlier: an air conditioner that struggled last season, a hot water system past its expected life, a slow-draining shower. A scheduled preventative visit catches those while the property is empty and the rates are standard.
Guest in the property and something has failed?
Send it through with the urgency marked as guest in house. It goes straight to the top of the queue.